Black History Month: Koya Greenaway-Harvey shares her story as a Black woman in the NHS
To celebrate Black History Month, we have been speaking with our staff to find out more about what Black History Month means to them, their personal experiences, and their favourite inspiring black women in history. This week, we had a catch up with Koya Greenaway-Harvey, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead to find out more.
Koya said: “One if my heroes is author, Malorie Blackman, and her book: ‘Noughts and Crosses’ which discusses what if the world was actually reversed and if black people were in power, would racism still exist. This book is one of the things that got me into the EDI space and thinking about it from a young age. It really stayed with me and helped inspire some of my passion for delivering change in all areas.
“As a black woman myself, I feel like my journey has been quite interesting. I started off my career at Amazon before moving off to working for a consultancy and then moving into the NHS after that.
“One of the things we need to remember for Black History Month is how important and how hard it can be sometimes being a black woman in spaces that don't always feel like they're for you. Working in the private sector, I was one of only a few black women in every space I occupied, and in the NHS, whilst there are more black staff, it feels like a bottleneck and you're constantly kind of fighting to get towards the top.
“A large part of my job here at CLCH is really helping everybody, but in particular being able to work on the Workforce Race Equality Standard, and really standing up and being able to challenge inequalities. Also being able to show how easy it could be to have progression and opportunities for black women who do so much and contribute so much for our services.
“My number one hero is Yvonne Coghill who was a previous director for WRES Implementation at NHS England. She has been fundamental in creating some of these processes, structures and safeguards that pioneer equality, diversity, and inclusion for all - specifically for black women.”
Watch the full video below:
